I stumbled through the town looking for some type of shopping center. I would barely see any life roaming the streets, and the only movement was the occasional plastic bag floating in the wind. The brick path was completely vacant, yet all the stores were open, and their owners were waiting inside for customers.
I looked down at my map once more. It said that the nearest store was 'Multi-Store, Everything You May Need, Right Thru our Doors.' Which was three blocks from me. It was pretty like to a KMart or Target. It would most likely have what I needed, a knife, maybe some clothes, some food, matches, and a backpack. I knew those items should be there, it would be stupid if they weren't, seeing as it advertised itself as a convenience store.
My stomach was rumbling like an earthquake, my mouth watered at the thought of being able to finally have a meal in over 16 hours. It propelled me to keep going, even though I wanted to eat the gum off of the brick road.
XxXxXxXx
When I arrived in the store, it wasn't as vacant as the rest of the city. A handful of people were browsing each aisle for merchandise, and a few were in the checkout line. It was eerie how similar this world was to mine, I thought. I wondered if they were somehow connected in some way.
I wandered around the market for awhile before I stumbled upon the men's clothing section. I saw a few coats for 100 'crowns' as Raymond called them. I kept looking; seeing as I only had 200 to spend, I didn't want to waste half of it on a coat. The least expensive one was a bulky green coat with cotton lining on the inside for warmth. The end of the coat reached down to knee length. It was 70 crown. I picked it up and threw it in my cart. There was also a body-length blanket for a few crown, figuring since it was pretty cheap I decided to buy it.
Making my way over to the food section, my eyes scanned the shelves for non-perishable foods. Preferably jerky, which I found on the top shelf within a few seconds. It said tauros jerky, yet oddly enough it looked exactly like beef. I read the ingredients, but I couldn't recognize any spices other than salt. I picked it up and read the price, it said 10 crowns. I threw it in the cart along with a box of crackers and some dried fruit, totaling 20 crowns. I found some 'pignite' rinds, with natural spiciness added by cheri berries. Oh well, I thought, it couldn't hurt to try, and for a measly 2 crowns. That's a deal no matter where you're from.
I sauntered over to the Outdoor Activities section. That's when my inner five-year-old came out. All manner of weapons were there, knives, air pistols, the type of toys that got a boy giddy. I felt excited just looking at them. But alas, I had to focus on the task at hand. I walked over to the knives and picked up a silver colored folding pocket knife with a lockback mechanism for 10 crowns. I figured it would be worth it, at least I wouldn't have to skin a fish with my hands. I also found a longer knife, with a 9 inch blade and a wooden handle, for 20 crowns. I chose to keep it, if only for combat purposes. While looking in the same aisle, I found a black backpack that was remarkably cheap. I figured that I should buy it so I'd have somewhere to put all the items I purchased in the store.
As expected, after browsing the store for a bit longer, I found a trainer section. It had some expensive training equipment I realistically wouldn't need. There were pokeballs for a 20 crowns each. I would definitely need those, but I couldn't afford an effective amount. I bought 2, making my grand total 172. I only had thirty crowns left. I still wanted some money left over, so I picked up 2 waterproof fire starter's that could presumably be used an unlimited amount while still maintaining the same spark.
By the time I got to the line at the checkout, the young man at the counter rung me up and I was on my way out shortly after. It turns out that 'crowns' weren't much different than dollars in my world. They didn't have coins, though; they just had .50 crown and .25 crown and so on. Also, different bills had different colors and different pokemon on them. The five crown had an arcanine, the ten had a dragonite, the 20 had a moltres, 50 had articuno, and 100 had zapdos.
The city had gotten a bit more movement in its streets. The more I thought about it, the more it started to remind me of Jersey. Most of the buildings were apartment complex's lacking front or backyards. There weren't even many plants, all the decor was either stone statues or large shiny rocks. The only color the city truly had was the grand blue sky above it. The only thing that was unlike Jersey was how uncrowded the city was.
Seeing an older looking woman leaned up against a building, I took it upon myself to ask someone for the time. I didn't know the time it was when I passed out and didn't attempt to find out. I also wanted to know if they used the same time system as we usually did in America.
"Excuse me, ma'am, do you know what time it is?" I asked. The old woman was draped a raggedy faded violet silk cloak covered with specks of dirt. Her pitch-black hair was concealed via a purple head wrap. Her skin was a chocolate color, with noticeable wrinkles under her eyes. She had a necklace with small wooden spheres making up the body of it, hanging around her neck.
"Indee-id I do young man, but I fear I'm in a desperate need for some type of nourishment. I see you have quite an ample bulk of grocery bags. I'd be in great gratitude if chew'd spare un old woman a share," I recognized that accent, it sounded suspiciously close to the Caribbean. I lived in a neighborhood with plenty of islanders. I even grew up with a Caribbean friend named Lana who had that exact same accent. The way she spoke was so elegant and refined, she spoke even better than most natural English-speakers. I loved the rolling of the r's especially, it's like a treat to my ears.
"Uhh, I have a couple bags of pignite rinds?" I lamely offered.
She looked at me with disgust, but soon collected herself and turned down my offer, saying. "No, It'tis against my religeeun, child. Ah do not eat da'pokeemun from de' udder regions, I will not let deez foreigners invade my body. It happened to my peepool', it twill nut happen to me."
"What do you mean, 'your people'?" I asked.
"My peepool', the original inhabitants of Kanto. They do not teach you dis' informatiun in the invader's soldier training?" The woman grinned.
"I'm not from here, I don't know much of the history," I nervously laughed, she looked at me doubtfully, but brushed it off and continued talking.
"Young mon', I can trade you some'ting more valuable than the time. I can geeve' you dee' secrets of your energy," she said ominously, her eyes seemingly looking at something I couldn't see.
"Uh, I guess it wouldn't hurt...and you'd give me a palm-reading or something?" I quipped. She looked as serious as ever despite my taking her as a joke.
"I see a darkness in yur captor device. Dis' creature is causing great sit-ress to you. You separated her from her pack and know she holds a great disdain towards you." It's like she knew my past despite never meeting me. I knew the pokemon world would be spectacular, but this was supernatural.
"How do you know all this? Is this a trick?"
"No, the angry pokemon left her dark mark on de' wounds chi inflicted jew' wit'," she said as if it was obvious. Her finger pointed to my shoulder and shin; which still ached from the attack.
"Are you some type of dark type expert or something?" I asked.
"My peepool have dee naturoll affinity for da' dark type pokeemon. Our peers are dee flowers and da' grass, but we remain the shade under duh tree," she spoke in a poet tone.
"Can you somehow make her obey me?" I request, she looked at me with disgust, but still answered me anyway.
"I will nut make a leafing creature wit' free weel obey another, tis is nut why dey' wor created." The strange woman denied.
"Well damn," I snapped with a frown on my face. I would think someone so knowledgeable about a certain pokemon would be able to help me, but things can never turn out favor, can they?
"I cun steel offer you advice wit convincing it to partner wit you through its own resolution," she suggested.
"Alright, lay it on me."
"She will respond best with negateeve reinforcement, so dis eez what I recommend for yur training. She is a pack pokeemun, she requires meeny pokeemun around her tuh make her feel protecteed. I suggest eider catching anudder or having a few friends to probide security por her," she proposed.
Great, half of that information I already knew and the other half was impossible for me to do. First off, why would I catch another pokemon when I can't even control the one I already have? And what friends could travel with me across the region? Mog and Raymond? Because they were the only ones I knew by name in Kanto.
"Jesus, well thanks for the advice. Here're some crown and some trail mix. Now do you know the time at all?" I sighed. The old woman snatched the goods from my hand and looked up at me with a smile.
"Do jew' see uh watch un my wrist, child?" She flashed her wrist, I frowned and walked off without waving bye. I got conned out of money and trail mix, and I still didn't even find out what the damn time was.
XxXxXxXx
I was walking down the path on the outskirts of Pewter City, grassier and less modernized, but it still had the characteristic rocky habitat that Pewter has. Small pebbles decorated the ground like gravel, except it was there naturally. Maybe there was once a lake or something there, but it dried up and left all the eroded rocks in its wake long ago. "Hey, kid," a girl skipped up from behind me. A purple snake with a piss yellow ring around its throat was curled up around her neck. I had no idea how she could possibly let that thing anywhere near her face. It turned its head toward me and I shrank down.
"Hey, kid," a girl skipped up from behind me. A purple snake with a piss yellow ring around its throat was curled up around her neck. I had no idea how she could possibly let that thing anywhere near her face. It turned its head toward me and I shrank down.
"Hey," I said dryly. I had sort of an attitude that day. Maybe because of the fact that I wasted my time talking to that random woman, then when I attempted to employ her tactics for training the mightyena I came up with less than perfect results. By that I mean she tried to tear my hand off when I used 'negateeve reinforcement' as she put it.
I followed the map to the eastern most exit of the town. I figured if I were to go out on a trainer populated route whilst training the mightyena, she wouldn't be able to kill me because someone would no doubt be there to stop her. I hoped it wouldn't need to come to that.
The route was covered in gravel and dangerous slopes. I saw a few hikers strolling along, but I chose not to battle them in the case they wanted to scrap. I couldn't quite yet compete against other trainers, I needed to prioritize getting the mightyena to obey me first.
I took my chances and released her. She burst out of the ball and immediately started snarling at me. "Hey!" I yelled at her, she stopped for a moment and listened to me. "Obey me or I'll...I'll cut you with this!" I pulled out my knife, the 9 inch one, and waved it around at her.
"If you even think about attacking me I won't hesitate to do it!" I said as I trembled in fear. Her eyes were narrowed, she wasn't scared, but she still listened to my words carefully. I wondered if she could understand me? I wouldn't be surprised considering all the other oddities I'd seen in that world.
The hyena pokemon made an odd laughing sound. Although she was cracking up, her face still portrayed harsh aggressiveness. She made a move to walk towards me, but I kicked her as she got close. She jumped back, and pinned her ears to her head, her laugh turning into a growl.
I pulled some jerky from my backpack and threw it at her. She caught it in her mouth, devouring it with vigor.
"If you want more of that then you'll LISTEN to me, or I'll starve you, you hear me, b-bitch!?" I shouted unsurely. The mightyena stayed silent in response. Her eyes wandering to my backpack.
"I'm gonna hand this to you…," I announced as I slowly stepped near her. Her fur became on edge, and she flashed her fangs at me. I swung my blade, she bounced back, dodging it. "Don't bite me, or I won't miss next time!" I warned.
I was about 3 feet away from her, and I set the jerky down in front of the hyena. Her ears perked up and she jumped for it, but I held out the blade, causing her to stop in her tracks.
"Slow...slow…," I repeated as she inched forwards. We were so close that I could hear her breathing. A drop of drool splashed on the gravel below us, her eyes met mine, and she took my distraction as an opportunity to snap the meaty treat away.
They said negative reinforcement would work, but I couldn't find it in myself to continually attack an animal without feeling like a terrible person. After all, it wasn't her fault that we met. She was just hungry, and I was an easy meal.
I attempted to touch her black coat, but she nipped me in the hand when I made contact. I yelped and hit her in the nose. She flinched from the pain, her eyes locked onto me and she lunged. I punch her in the stomach mid-jump. The dark hyena landed on the ground and yelled at the top of her lungs.
"I'm not gonna hurt you if you don't hurt me," I said, I yet again drew a piece of jerky from my backpack. I placed it on the ground and signalled for her to pick it up. She begrudgingly stalked over. Her eyes fixated on the jerky. When she got within arms reach, I touched her fur successfully for the first time. My hand was gently placed on her back, I rubbed it and felt the oil and fat from her habit of eating raw meat. I retracted my hand back and got a whiff of rotten meat. My palm had a black tint to it now.
"I think you need a name," I declared. She sat down and peered at me.
"Um...I know that they used to refer to hyena's as...," I recalled
"Zevoa! How does that name sound?" I asked, not realizing that she probably couldn't understand a word. In the Hebrew bible, they referred to hyena's as 'Zevoa.' I was raised Jewish, and even though I abandoned most of their ideals, I still retained a bounty of knowledge of their holy book.
There was a gym in Pewter, and I wanted to challenge it eventually. Mightyena is a decent pokemon as far as physical attack. If she attacked with the same savagery against other pokemon as she did me, she should be able to take it with little effort. After all, she was a second stage pokemon fighting the first gym leader, those chances seemed heavily tipped in my favor.
It would've been a good idea to start training her ability in combat, and somehow get her bite strength to improve significantly. I had wanted her to be able to rip off someone's arm using only her jaws. Her typing also granted her an immunity to the very powerful psychic type pokemon, which was impressive.
XxXxXxXx
My progress with Zevoa was abysmal, she rarely even responded to her name. The only thing she replied to was jerky and my knife. I screamed commands at her, and she just growled back at me. At least she didn't try to run off. She did stray a few times, but all it took was some jerky to get her back.
There was a thick stick lying on the ground, I wrapped my fingers around it and decided to play a little game with my pokemon.
"Come here, Zevoa, wanna play?" I waved the stick in the air, she involuntarily flinched and scurried away. "No, no, come on," I motioned for her to move forward, Lana took the signal as me wanting to give her another piece of Jerky, and she advanced in my direction.
I made growling sounds with my mouth and got down on my knees. I swung the stick and she instinctively caught it in her jaw. The mightyena attempted to yank the stick away, but I still tried to pull it away.
"Bite it, bite it, there you go Zevoa!" I tried to associate the word 'bite' with actual biting, so that when I ordered for her to bite stuff, she'd actually do it. I kept antagonizing her by smacking her on the side of the head. She became hyper-aggressive, her teeth cracked open the dead branch and buried her fangs in it. Her voice turned deep and ferocious, Zevoa's eyes became deeper red than usual.
She pulled the stick away and shook it until it broke in half. The female mightyena's voice became intense and angry.
"Tssch, stop that, Zevoa," I pointed at her. Her red eyes faded to their usual color. I didn't even have to wave around the knife for her to know what 'stop' meant. The whole word association thing really worked.
XxXxXxXx
It was sunset, and I made little progress with the whole word association thing. She knew the command for 'come here' and 'stop', everything else was lamentable. I ate a bunch of those pignite rinds and they were hot as fire. I gave the whole bag to Zevoa and she seemed to love them. I couldn't ponder it. The jerky tasted fine, it was a lot tougher than regular jerky but was still pretty tasty.
Using the rest of my cash, I bought some food from a street vendor within the city. This vendor sold little bread pockets filled with meat and vegetables. It tasted delicious, I bought three more for Zevoa, she was a big girl after all.
I strolled through the rest of the town with Zevoa in her pokeball. I didn't know how she would react around other people, so I didn't want to test her limits. I was making good progress, and soon or later I would be confident enough in her to release her within city limits.
As the sky was getting darker, I made my way to the pokemon center. I didn't feel like yet again sleeping outdoors freezing to the ground; even if I was better equipped for it than before.
The center was empty, I took a seat on one of the red chairs. I pulled out my new blanket and soon fell asleep on the red chair. It was bad on my back, but better than the ground. As I was dozing off someone tapped me on the shoulder, whispering hey into my ear.
I finally woke up and looked at the person interrupting my slumber. She was a young woman in a red Barrett smiled at me and spoke. "There are rooms in the center, they're only ten crown a night," she informed. I growled to myself. Great, I looked like an idiot in front of someone and I was too broke to fix it.
"Thanks, but I don't have any money to buy a room," I said to the girl.
"Well, I'll let you sleep in my room then," well that surprised me, a young girl couldn't have just been inviting a random guy into her room for the hospitality points.
"I don't think so," I turned away from her and tucked my head into my blanket.
"No it's fine, you'll pay me back triple in the morning when I destroy you in a battle," she laughed. Now that I took offense to, how did she know she'd beat me in a battle? I had a fully grown semi-trained mightyena on my squad, what the hell did she have?
"Is this some type of scam you're running? Pay for somebody's room then rob them the next morning? How do you know I won't have one of my pokemon maul you in the middle of the night?" I threatened. She just giggled at me.
"Don't worry, I'll make sure you do nothing of the sort. Look at it this way; you get a free night in the pokemon center, and when you wake up you can battle one of the most skilled trainers in the city," she bragged. I mean, it was a good point that I would get a free night and wake up in the morning being able to demolish a trainer for the first time in the morning.
I got up and folded my blanket, all the while the girl was staring intently at me. "So...yes?" She asked. I sighed and nodded, after all, I had a combat knife and a large hyena on my person ready to go at any time, I felt pretty safe.
She skipped along up the flight of stairs in the pokemon center. I tried my hardest to run behind her, but I struggled to catch up with the energetic woman. The little woman came up to her door and popped it open.
She flipped the light switch and stepped into the door. Her room looked exactly like the one I woke up in. The only difference being she had a huge orange dog with black stripes draped across its back on the bed. It's ears perked up as she entered, it let loose a thundering bark as I walked in. But upon its trainer waving it off, it calmed down.
"Do I have to look forward to that monster when we battle tomorrow?"
"Yup."
"What's his name?" I asked.
"That's Bailey, as you can tell he's a mid-staged growlithe. He'll be an arcanine in about a year, I can't wait."
"Mid-staged growlithe? What do you mean." I said as I got settled on the floor. I undid my blanket and made sure to set my knife right under it, so I could grab it quickly just in case.
"Yeah, he's in the middle of his evolution. Pokemon don't just evolve in the blink of an eye with a flash of light, smart guy." Not from what I've seen of it, doll, not from what I've seen.
"So how long did it take to get that far?" I asked.
"Four years, but I've only had him for a year, and I've been training for 7 months."
"Daaamn, how about a regular pokemon like uhh, poochyena?" If I caught another pokemon that was in its first evolutionary stage, I'd have a hell of a time getting it to evolve.
"Last time I checked, eighteen months," so my mightyena was almost two-years-old, I thought.
"Did anyone ever teach you this while you were growing up?"
"I just didn't pay attention," I lied. She nodded in understanding.
"What is your name?" I asked her, "I'm Floyd North."
"Terry Palmer, I hail from Viridian City, that's where I got my first badge." A badge in Viridian? The only way to get there is the forest. That would be hell and a half when I needed the badge there.
"Let me see your trainer card to prove it," I stuck my hand out, she snorted and dug it out of her little red purse. I held it to the light inspecting it, "Hm, seems legit." Now I knew her full name, meaning I could report her if she did anything deceitful.
"Not easily trusting, are you?"
"Give me yours, to prove it's your real name," I did exactly that. She looked it over and nodded her head. "Seems legit."
"This here says you're badgeless. Is that right?" She observed. We traded our cards back to each other and continued our conversation.
"Yup but the gym probably won't be a problem for me. I've got a second stage pokemon already," I bragged.
Terry looked at me like I was insane. "The gym leader is no joke from my experience. I already lost to her twice," her? I thought Brock was the leader of Pewter City's gym.
"Wait, wait, her? What happened to Brock?"
"Where are you from again?" Terry cocked her head to the side.
"I'm from Lavender," I answered.
It seemed like her jaw dropped to the floor at that comment, but she collected herself and said, "Brock retired fifteen years ago. You must be really out of the loop, Floyd."
"I, uh, that's not what I meant."
"Then what did you mean?" The barrett wearing girl laughed.
"I meant I thought Brock was a umm…better leader. Yeah, that's what I meant," I said dumbly. Terry smiled.
"Well, you're in the minority. Clarin is probably one of the strongest leaders in Kanto. Brock was a bum in comparison," she snorted.
"What else do you know about her? What pokemon does she use?"
"You'll have to find out yourself. Her pokemon are rock type, that's all I can say," she snickered.
"How many does she use then?" I asked.
"Usually three, most of them do. If you have more than three, she'll use that amount. As you go further in the league, like ten badges and above, they'll just use six."
"Ten badges? Do you know all of their types?" I questioned.
"Yeah, they're all of the types. eighteen-gym leaders," she informed me. That was more than twice the amount. It took her 7 months to get one badge, how long could it possibly take to get eighteen?
"How long do you think it'd take to get all of them?" I hoped she wouldn't say a ridiculous figure like five years.
"About three years. After the first three or four, you should have a full party and your team should basically be under your full control. Once they are under your control, all you'll really need to do to get the rest is to train to get stronger, not for obedience." That wasn't too bad.
"That sounds simple enough."
"Slow your roll, you haven't even gotten a badge. I don't really know exactly how hard it'll be either," she turned off the lamp and covered up with her blanket. "Try anything and Bailey will kill you," she said bluntly. I took the tip and got comfortable. I could feel her growlithe staring into my back. My knife was lock tight in my hand. It took a while for me to fall asleep, but eventually I drifted off.
When I finally fell asleep, I couldn't help but hold on tightly to my mightyena's pokeball. I was depending on her heavily for that battle, actually, I was solely depending